A fractional kinetic process describing the intermediate time behaviour of cellular flows

This paper studies the intermediate time behaviour of a small random perturbation of a periodic cellular flow. Our main result shows that on time scales shorter than the diffusive time scale, the limiting behaviour of trajectories that start close enough to cell boundaries is a fractional kinetic process: A Brownian motion time changed by the local time of an independent Brownian motion. Our proof uses the Freidlin-Wentzell framework, and the key step is to establish an analogous averaging principle on shorter time scales. As a consequence of our main theorem, we obtain a homogenization result for the associated advection-diffusion equation. We show that on intermediate time scales the effective equation is a fractional time PDE that arises in modelling anomalous diffusion

A Scientific Conception of Animal Welfare that Reflects Ethical Concerns

Scientific research on \u27animal welfare\u27 began because of ethical concerns over the quality of life of animals, and the public looks to animal welfare research for guidance regarding these concerns. The conception of animal welfare used by scientists must relate closely to these ethical concerns if the orientation of the research and the interpretation of the findings is to address them successfully. At least three overlapping ethical concerns are commonly expressed regarding the quality of life of animals: (1) that animals should lead natural lives through the development and use of their natural adaptations and capabilities, (2) that animals should feel well by being free from prolonged and intense fear, pain, and other negative states, and by experiencing normal pleasures, and (3) that animals should function well, in the sense of satisfactory health, growth and normal functioning of physiological and behavioural systems. Various scientists have proposed restricted conceptions of animal welfare that relate to only one or other of these three concerns. Some such conceptions are based on value positions about what is truly important for the quality of life of animals or about the nature of human responsibility for animals in their care. Others are operational claims: (1) that animal welfare research must focus on the functioning of animals because subjective experiences fall outside the realm of scientific enquiry, or (2) that studying the functioning of animals is sufficient because subjective experiences and functioning are closely correlated. We argue that none of these positions provides fully satisfactory guidance for animal welfare research. We suggest instead that ethical concerns about the quality of life of animals can be better captured by recognizing three classes of problems that may arise when the adaptations possessed by an animal do not fully correspond to the challenges posed by its current environment. (1) If animals possess adaptations that no longer serve a significant function in the new environment, then unpleasant subjective experiences may arise, yet these may not be accompanied by significant disruption to biological functioning. Thus, a bucket-fed calf may experience a strong, frustrated desire to suck, even though it obtains adequate milk. (2) If the environment poses challenges for which the animal has no corresponding adaptation, then functional problems may arise, yet these may not be accompanied by significant effects on subjective feelings. Thus, a pig breathing polluted air may develop lung damage without appearing to notice or mind the problem. (3) Where animals have adaptations corresponding to the kinds of environmental challenges they face, problems may still arise if the adaptations prove inadequate. For example, an animal\u27s thermoregulatory adaptations may be insufficient in a very cold environment such that the animal both feels poorly and functions poorly. We propose that all three types of problems are causes of ethical concern over the quality of life of animals and that they together define the subject matter of animal welfare science

Conflict and Cooperation: Sociobiological Principles and the Behaviour of Pigs

The pig provides many examples of how principles of behavioural ecology and sociobiology can lead to insights into farm animal behaviour. According to parent-offspring conflict theory, parents should tend to give a level of parental investment somewhat below that solicited by the young. When closely confined during lactation, sows can do little to limit the amount of contact with the piglets, and the young stimulate a prolonged, high level of lactation. Certain alternative housing systems allow the sow to limit the stimulation she receives, and the resulting reduction in lactation can actually be advantageous to both parties. Communal care of offspring has both advantages and disadvantages in various species; these may help to explain why communal care occurs to a limited extent in pigs, and why sows isolate their litters in early lactation. Neonatal competition and mortality among newborn piglets have strong parallels in the “facultative siblicide” which adjusts brood size in numerous species of birds. These species typically produce slightly more young than are normally raised, and the number of siblings that survive is determined by the ability of the smaller young to withstand intense competition. The hypothesis that pigs have evolved a similar system of brood reduction may explain why piglet mortality is such an enduring problem and requires solutions different from those that work for other domestic species. Resource defence theory provides a functional framework for studies of aggressive behaviour. Factors determining the defensibility of a resource include its degree of clumping in time and space, and these suggest ways to reduce competition for food and other resources. However, aggression involved in establishing social dominance is more likely to be influenced by manipulating traits of the competing animals (competitive ability, familiarity) rather than the defensibility of resources. We conclude that principles of behavioural ecology and sociobiology provide a useful functional and evolutionary perspective to complement other approaches to the study of farm animal behaviour

Conflict and Cooperation: Sociobiological Principles and the Behaviour of Pigs

The pig provides many examples of how principles of behavioural ecology and sociobiology can lead to insights into farm animal behaviour. According to parent-offspring conflict theory, parents should tend to give a level of parental investment somewhat below that solicited by the young. When closely confined during lactation, sows can do little to limit the amount of contact with the piglets, and the young stimulate a prolonged, high level of lactation. Certain alternative housing systems allow the sow to limit the stimulation she receives, and the resulting reduction in lactation can actually be advantageous to both parties. Communal care of offspring has both advantages and disadvantages in various species; these may help to explain why communal care occurs to a limited extent in pigs, and why sows isolate their litters in early lactation. Neonatal competition and mortality among newborn piglets have strong parallels in the “facultative siblicide” which adjusts brood size in numerous species of birds. These species typically produce slightly more young than are normally raised, and the number of siblings that survive is determined by the ability of the smaller young to withstand intense competition. The hypothesis that pigs have evolved a similar system of brood reduction may explain why piglet mortality is such an enduring problem and requires solutions different from those that work for other domestic species. Resource defence theory provides a functional framework for studies of aggressive behaviour. Factors determining the defensibility of a resource include its degree of clumping in time and space, and these suggest ways to reduce competition for food and other resources. However, aggression involved in establishing social dominance is more likely to be influenced by manipulating traits of the competing animals (competitive ability, familiarity) rather than the defensibility of resources. We conclude that principles of behavioural ecology and sociobiology provide a useful functional and evolutionary perspective to complement other approaches to the study of farm animal behaviour

Winning the Genetic Lottery: Biasing Birth Sex Ratio Results in More Grandchildren.

Population dynamics predicts that on average parents should invest equally in male and female offspring; similarly, the physiology of mammalian sex determination is supposedly stochastic, producing equal numbers of sons and daughters. However, a high quality parent can maximize fitness by biasing their birth sex ratio (SR) to the sex with the greatest potential to disproportionately outperform peers. All SR manipulation theories share a fundamental prediction: grandparents who bias birth SR should produce more grandoffspring via the favored sex. The celebrated examples of biased birth SRs in nature consistent with SR manipulation theories provide compelling circumstantial evidence. However, this prediction has never been directly tested in mammals, primarily because the complete three-generation pedigrees needed to test whether individual favored offspring produce more grandoffspring for the biasing grandparent are essentially impossible to obtain in nature. Three-generation pedigrees were constructed using 90 years of captive breeding records from 198 mammalian species. Male and female grandparents consistently biased their birth SR toward the sex that maximized second-generation success. The most strongly male-biased granddams and grandsires produced respectively 29% and 25% more grandoffspring than non-skewing conspecifics. The sons of the most male-biasing granddams were 2.7 times as fecund as those of granddams with a 50:50 bias (similar results are seen in grandsires). Daughters of the strongest female-biasing granddams were 1.2 times as fecund as those of non-biasing females (this effect is not seen in grandsires). To our knowledge, these results are the first formal test of the hypothesis that birth SR manipulation is adaptive in mammals in terms of grandchildren produced, showing that SR manipulation can explain biased birth SR in general across mammalian species. These findings also have practical implications: parental control of birth SR has the potential to accelerate genetic loss and risk of extinction within captive populations of endangered species

Estimation in high dimensions: a geometric perspective

This tutorial provides an exposition of a flexible geometric framework for high dimensional estimation problems with constraints. The tutorial develops geometric intuition about high dimensional sets, justifies it with some results of asymptotic convex geometry, and demonstrates connections between geometric results and estimation problems. The theory is illustrated with applications to sparse recovery, matrix completion, quantization, linear and logistic regression and generalized linear models.Comment: 56 pages, 9 figures. Multiple minor change

Quantum dot photonic crystal nanocavities: Transition from weak to strong coupling and nonlinear emissions

Photonic crystal slab nanocavities containing one layer of quantum dots have exhibited: strong coupling to a single quantum dot; tuning by condensation of xenon gas; linewidth broadening due to ensemble dot absorption; gain and lasing

Effect of a single subcutaneous injection of meloxicam on chronic indicators of pain and inflammatory responses in 2-month-old knife and band-castrated beef calves housed on pasture

One hundred and thirty-one 2 mo. old pasture housed Angus cross bull calves were evaluated for 62 d over two years (Year 1: n = 69, 134.1 ± 20.37 kg BW; Year 2: n = 62, 118.1 ± 15.49 kg BW) to determine 1) the effects of a subcutaneous (s.c) injection of meloxicam on indicators of long term pain after castration and 2) the potential use of cow-calf proximity and home range as indicators of pain. Calves were randomly assigned to treatments using a 3 × 2 factorial design including castration - sham (CT; n = 47), band (BA; n = 46) or knife (KN; n = 38) castration and medication – s.c. meloxicam (M; n = 66) or s.c. lactated ringers solution (NM; n = 65). Measurements included performance, scrotal temperature, swelling (WS) and healing (WH) scores, and pain sensitivity, collected on d -1, 6, 13, 20, 34, 48, and 62 post-castration. Suckling, lying, standing and walking duration, and head-turning, lesion-licking, foot-stamping and tail-flick frequencies were collected immediately following and up to 2-d after castration. Cow-calf proximity and home range were obtained from d 0 to 2 and from d 14 to 16. With the exception of suckling, no medication (P > 0.05) effects were found. Greater (P < 0.05) pain sensitivity was observed in KN from d 6 to 34 and on d 62, and in BA from d 6 to 62 compared to CT calves. Knife calves showed an earlier (d 20) absence of inflammatory responses (WS; P < 0.05) than BA (d 34) and overall, KN calves had greater (P < 0.05) standing, walking, and head turning than BA and CT. Knife and BA had greater (P < 0.05) foot stamping than CT for the first 2 h post-castration, but KN exhibited greater (P < 0.05) frequencies between 9 and 11 h (d 0) compared to BA and CT, and had greater (P < 0.05) tail flicks from d 0 to 2 than CT. Banded calves were closer to their dams on d 15 while KN calves and their dams had a reduced home range on d 0 than CT cow-calf pairs. Although meloxicam did not reduce indicators of pain (with exception of suckling behavior), our results suggest that knife castration causes greater acute pain, while band castration resulted in greater chronic-pain. Cow-calf proximity and home range have some potential to be used as pain indicators post-castration.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pharmacokinetics of oral and subcutaneous meloxicam: Effect on indicators of pain and inflammation after knife castration in weaned beef calves

Oral meloxicam is labelled for reducing pain and inflammation associated with castration in cattle in Canada, however, subcutaneous meloxicam is only labelled for pain associated with dis-budding and abdominal surgery. The aim of this project was to determine the pharmacokinetic profile of oral (PO; 1.0 mg/kg BW) and subcutaneous meloxicam (SC; 0.5 mg/kg BW), and to assess the effect of meloxicam on physiological and behavioural indicators of pain associated with knife castration in 7–8 month old calves. Twenty-three Angus crossbred beef calves (328 ± 4.4 kg BW) were randomly assigned to two treatments: PO n = 12 or SC n = 11 administration of meloxicam immediately before knife castration. Physiological parameters included salivary and hair cortisol, substance P, haptoglobin, serum amyloid-A, weight, complete blood count, scrotal and rectal temperature. Behavioural parameters included standing and lying behaviour, pen behaviour and feeding behaviour. Data were analyzed using PROC GLIMMIX (SAS), with repeated measures using mixed procedures including treatment as a fixed effect and animal and pen as a random effect. The pharmacokinetic profile of the drug including area under the curve, volume of distribution and clearance was greater (P < 0.05) in PO than SC calves. After surgery, substance P concentrations, white blood cell counts (WBC), weight and lying duration were greater (P < 0.05) in PO than SC calves, while scrotal circumference was lower (P < 0.05) in PO calves than SC calves. Although statistical differences were observed for pharmacokinetic, physiological and behavioural parameters differences were small and may lack biological relevance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A dual-center cohort study on the association between early deep sedation and clinical outcomes in mechanically ventilated patients during the COVID-19 pandemic: The COVID-SED study

BACKGROUND: Mechanically ventilated patients have experienced greater periods of prolonged deep sedation during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Multiple studies from the pre-COVID era demonstrate that early deep sedation is associated with worse outcome. Despite this, there is a lack of data on sedation depth and its impact on outcome for mechanically ventilated patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. We sought to characterize the emergency department (ED) and intensive care unit (ICU) sedation practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to determine if early deep sedation was associated with worse clinical outcomes. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Dual-center, retrospective cohort study conducted over 6 months (March-August, 2020), involving consecutive, mechanically ventilated adults. All sedation-related data during the first 48 h were collected. Deep sedation was defined as Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale of - 3 to - 5 or Riker Sedation-Agitation Scale of 1-3. To examine impact of early sedation depth on hospital mortality (primary outcome), we used a multivariable logistic regression model. Secondary outcomes included ventilator-, ICU-, and hospital-free days. RESULTS: 391 patients were studied, and 283 (72.4%) experienced early deep sedation. Deeply sedated patients received higher cumulative doses of fentanyl, propofol, midazolam, and ketamine when compared to light sedation. Deep sedation patients experienced fewer ventilator-, ICU-, and hospital-free days, and greater mortality (30.4% versus 11.1%) when compared to light sedation (p \u3c 0.01 for all). After adjusting for confounders, early deep sedation remained significantly associated with higher mortality (adjusted OR 3.44; 95% CI 1.65-7.17; p \u3c 0.01). These results were stable in the subgroup of patients with COVID-19. CONCLUSIONS: The management of sedation for mechanically ventilated patients in the ICU has changed during the COVID pandemic. Early deep sedation is common and independently associated with worse clinical outcomes. A protocol-driven approach to sedation, targeting light sedation as early as possible, should continue to remain the default approach